Ulrika Emanuelsson, born 1965, is a composer, conductor and singer active primarily in Lund. Her choral music has rich, evocative and sometimes harsh sounds with both polyrhythms and the voice as a percussive instrument. With texts by authors such as Dag Hammarskiöld, Tomas Tranströmer and Lotta Lotass, Emanuelsson's music moves in an existential universe. Ulrika Emanuelsson has been awarded several times for her compositions.
Ulrika Emanuelsson graduated from the Academy of Music in Malmö in 2007 and also has a rhythm education degree as well as vocal studies in New York and Budapest. During her composition studies, she studied with Hans Gefors and Rolf Martinsson, Kent Olofsson, Björn-Tryggve Johansson and Luca Francesconi.
She writes for chamber ensemble, orchestra and solo as well as opera, oratorios, requiems, theater music and short films - but the emphasis is on choral music and vocals. As an experienced ensemble singer, Ulrika Emanuelsson has passed through a large amount of music, something that greatly influenced her as a composer. Her method is about extra-musical elements, a challenge and limitation to create from the outside.
Ulrika has received orders from a large number of the most reputable choirs in Sweden. For Sveriges Radio and Berwaldhallen's celebration of Hugo Alfvén's 150th anniversary in 2022, the Radiokören ordered the arrangementJohansson – Lyrical games, which was also recorded on disc. AlsoIn the white unfilled(2023) to texts by Lotta Lotass was a commissioned piece from SR P2, this time for Sofia Vokalensemble and Bengt Ollén.
Hans Lundgren, Director musics emeritus Linköping University, says about Ulrika Emanuelsson:
"Ulrika Emanuelsson has established herself as one of the most interesting Swedish composers of choral music. With her background as a singer and as the founder and leader of Carolinae Röster in Lund, she has a vocally easy-to-understand and appealing tone and her text choices are very conscious."
Ulrika Emanuelsson has been praised for her music, including at the Sacred Music Festival in New York and by the Cambridge Madrigal Singers in Boston. She has received STIM's, the Association of Swedish Composers' and Madeleine Uggla's scholarships, is a board member of the Association of Swedish Choir Leaders and director of Körcentrum Syd.
